Search

Background: Little is known about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) at different stages of the pandemic. This study aims to assess the lives and disease status of PD patients during the zero-COVID policy period and after ending the zero-COVID policy. Methods: This multicenter cross-sectional study included two online surveys among PD patients in China, from May 30 to June 30 in 2022 and from January 1 to February 28 in 2023, respectively. The survey questionnaires contained four sections: (1) status of COVID-19 infection; (2) impact on motor and non-motor symptoms; (3) impact on daily and social lives; and (4) impact on PD disease management. Results: A total of 1764 PD patients participated in the first online survey, with 200 patients having lockdown experience and 3 being COVID-19-positive (0.17%). In addition, 537 patients participated in the second online survey, with 467 patients having COVID-19 infection (86.96%). (1) During zero-COVID, all of the COVID-19-positive patients had mild symptoms of COVID-19 and no death was reported. After zero-COVID, 83.51% of the COVID-19-positive patients had mild symptoms. The overall death rate and inpatient mortality rate of COVID-19-positive PD patients were 3.21% and 30.00%, respectively. (2) During zero-COVID, 49.43% of PD patients reported worsening of PD-related symptoms (lockdown vs. unlockdown, 60.50% vs. 48.02%, P = 0.0009). After zero-COVID, 54.93% of PD patients reported worsening of PD-related symptoms (COVID-19 positive vs. COVID-19 negative, 59.31% vs. 25.71%, P < 0.0001). (3) During zero-COVID, 62.36% of patients felt worried, and 'limited outdoor activities' (55.39%) was the top reason for mental health problems. After zero-COVID, 59.03% of patients felt worried, with 'poor health' (58.10%) being the top reason. The PD patients tended to change their daily activities from offline to online, and their economic and caregiver burdens increased both during and after zero-COVID. (4) Most PD patients would like to choose online rehabilitation during (69.56%) and after zero-COVID (69.27%). The demand for online medication purchasing also increased during (47.00%) and after zero-COVID (26.63%). Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic aggravated the motor and non-motor symptoms of PD patients either during or after the zero-COVID policy period. The PD patients also experienced prominent mental health problems, changes in daily activities, and increases in economic and caregiver burdens. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed ways of PD management with increasing demands for online medication purchasing and rehabilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective A nontargeted metabolomics approach was established to characterize serum metabolic profile in type 3c diabetes mellitus (T3cDM) secondary to chronic pancreatitis and compare with T2DM. Methods Forty patients were recruited for metabolite analysis based on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. Cluster heatmap and KEGG metabolic pathway enrichment analysis were used to analyze the specific and differential metabolites. The receiver operating characteristics (ROCs) were generated and correlation analysis with clinical data was conducted. Results Metabolites including sphingosine, lipids, carnitine, bile acid, and hippuric acid were found to be different between T2DM and T3cDM, mainly enriched in bile acid biosynthesis, fatty acid biosynthesis, and sphingolipid metabolic pathways. The ROCs were generated with an area under the curve of 0.907 (95% confidence interval, 0.726–1) for the model with 15 metabolites. Conclusion T3cDM is characterized by increased sphingosine, carnitine, bile acid, and most lipids, providing novel biomarkers for clinical diagnosis and a future direction in research on pathophysiological mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Post-acute pancreatitis diabetes mellitus (PPDM-A) is the main component of pancreatic exocrine diabetes mellitus. Timely diagnosis of PPDM-A improves patient outcomes and the mitigation of burdens and costs. We aimed to determine risk factors prospectively and predictors of PPDM-A in China, focusing on giving personalized treatment recommendations. Here, we identify and evaluate the best set of predictors of PPDM-A prospectively using retrospective data from 820 patients with acute pancreatitis at four centers by machine learning approaches. We used the L1 regularized logistic regression model to diagnose early PPDM-A via nine clinical variables identified as the best predictors. The model performed well, obtaining the best AUC = 0.819 and F1 = 0.357 in the test set. We interpreted and personalized the model through nomograms and Shapley values. Our model can accurately predict the occurrence of PPDM-A based on just nine clinical pieces of information and allows for early intervention in potential PPDM-A patients through personalized analysis. Future retrospective and prospective studies with multicentre, large sample populations are needed to assess the actual clinical value of the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the entrepreneurial development of taobao village based on e-business has led to a new round growth of rural economy in China. This paper constructs a evolution analysis framework of taobao village entrepreneurial network based on the big data of taobao intelligent information system from the year 2007–2016. The social network analysis software Gephi was applied to analyze the data. The result is that: Firstly, the early emerged online shops with high betweenness centrality degree, which mastered important resources and power within the network, formed a strong entrepreneurial demonstration effect to the other shops. Secondly, in taobao village, the number of strong relationship shops increased, entrepreneurial network gradually dispersed characteristics of clustering, entrepreneurial network community structure strength enhanced, division quality optimization, and the transmission performance and efficiency of entrepreneurial network improved. The entrepreneurial network has a typical characteristic of "acquaintance" network business conduction. Thirdly, the entrepreneurial network density of Lin'an taobao village showed a significant downward trend, which may be more conducive to the homogeneous agricultural products sales shops to access to heterogeneous resources, so as to obtain more long-term future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Wufu Decoction (WFD) is a herbal formulation composed of five traditional Chinese herbs that is used clinically for arthritis treatment in China. The current study investigated the chondroprotective effects and the underlying mechanism of WFD for osteoarthritis (OA) therapy. Methods: The chondroprotective effects of WFD were investigated based on vitro study. Following the successful isolation of chondrocytes from rat cartilage tissues and the identification of collagen II expression with immunofluorescence staining, chondrocytes were co‐incubated with tumor necrosis factor‐α (TNF‐α) to induce an inflammation model; WFD was also administered. After the treatment, cell viability was determined by MTT assay, cell apoptosis was assessed by DAPI staining, the concentration of inflammation cytokines interleukin (IL)‐1β and IL‐6 were detected with ELISA assay, the expression of collagen II, MEK1/2‐ERK1/2 signaling pathway proteins was detected using western blotting, and mRNA expression of MMP‐1, MMP‐9 and MMP‐13 were determined with quantitative real‐time polymerase chain reaction. Results: Wufu Decoction significantly restored the cell viability suppressed by TNF‐α and inhibited the cell apoptosis induced by TNF‐α in chondrocytes. The high concentrations of IL‐1β and IL‐6 in TNF‐α‐induced model cells were significantly decreased in WFD‐treated chondrocytes, and the immunofluorescence staining and western blot results showed that the inhibited expression of collagen II in the TNF‐α‐induced model group was significantly increased in WFD‐treated chondrocytes. The protein expressions of MEK1/2, p‐ERK1/2, and P53 were significantly reduced in the WFD‐treated group compared with those in the model group, and the mRNA expressions of MMP‐1, MMP‐9, and MMP‐13 were also significantly reduced with WFD treatment. Conclusion: The present study indicated that WFD exerted a chondroprotective effect in TNF‐α‐induced chondrocytes via the regulation of the ERK1/2 signaling pathway, suggesting that WFD has therapeutic potential for OA therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The entrepreneurship of intelligent manufacturing enterprises in manufacturing clusters have significant influences on China's economic growth in the process of industry 4.0. This paper reveals the entrepreneurship of intelligent manufacturing enterprises by the analysis of network theory. By the questionnaire of 470 effective sample enterprises in the 6 manufacturing industrial clusters selected, Structural Equation Modeling and the AMOS software are used to verify the theoretical hypotheses. The findings are as follows: first, entrepreneurial competence has a positive effect on corporate entrepreneurship; second, network relation, betweenness centrality and network scale have positive effect on entrepreneurial competence; third, network relationship strength and network density have different effects on entrepreneurial competence. Based on the results of empirical analysis, this paper puts forward some policy suggestions to promote enterprise entrepreneurship in industrial clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We present a quantitative model for the crustal movement in China with respect to the Eurasia plate by using the three-dimensional finite element code ADELI. The model consists of an elastoplastic upper lithosphere and a viscoelastic lower lithosphere. The lithosphere is supported by the hydrostatic pressure at its base. The India–Eurasia collision is modeled as a velocity boundary condition. Ten large-scale faults are introduced as Coulomb-type frictional zones in the modeling. The values for the root mean square (RMS) of the east and north velocity components differences (RMS(Ue) and RMS(Un)), which are between the observation and the prediction, are regarded as the measurements to evaluate our simulations. We model the long-term crustal deformation in China by adjusting the faults frictions ranged from 0.01 to 0.5 and considering the effects resulted from lithospheric viscosity variation and topographic loading. Our results suggest most of the large-scale faults frictions are not larger than 0.1, which is consistent with other large-scale faults such as the North Anatolian fault (Provost, A.S., Chery, J., Hassani, R., 2003. Three-dimensional mechanical modeling of the GPS velocity field along the North Anatolian fault. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 209, 361–377) and the San Andreas fault (Mount, V.S., Suppe, J., 1987. State of stress near the San Andreas fault: implications for wrench tectonics. Geology, 15, 1143–1146). Further, we examine the effects on the long-term crustal deformation in China of three causes: the large-scale faults, lithospheric viscosity structure and topographic loading. Results indicate that the lithospheric viscosity structure and the topographic loading have important influences on the crustal deformation in China, while the influences caused by the large-scale faults are small. Although our simulations satisfactorily reproduce the general picture of crustal movement in China, there is a poor agreement between the model and the observed GPS velocity field in Sichuan–Yunnan area. It may result from our simple models such as that the faults are all vertical from model surface to bottom and that the effects caused by the subduction of Burma slab are neglected. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Using a dynamic method, we present a quantitative model for the present-day crustal movement in China. We consider not only the effect of the India–Eurasia collision, the gravitational potential energy difference of the Tibet Plateau, but also the contribution of the shear traction on the bottom of the lithosphere induced by the global mantle convection. By solving a system of force balance equations using a finite element method, we obtain the crustal movement velocity in China with respect to the Eurasia plate. The comparison between our result and the velocity field obtained from the GPS observation shows that our model satisfactorily reproduces the general picture of crustal deformation in China. Numerical modeling results reveal that the shear traction at the base of the lithosphere induced by the mantle flow is probably a considerable factor that causes the movement and deformation of the lithosphere in China continent. But its effect focus on the eastern China. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on Shenmei #3, a strawberry cultivar hybridized by the Forestry & Fruit Research Institute (FFRI) of the Shanghai Academy of Agricultural Sciences (SAAS) in China. The plants and fruits of this cultivar are powdery mildew-resistant. The appearance of leaves and fruit of Shenmei #3 are described. The findings on the quality and ascorbic acid content of the fruit are detailed.

Objective: To investigate the status quo and the needs of medical imaging technicians (MITs) in the radiology department of secondary and tertiary hospitals in China, so as to provide references and support for the development of the medical imaging technology industry and the relevant policymaking by health administrative departments., Methods: The questionnaire was developed by the Chinese Society of Imaging Technology. The radiology department of each hospital involved in the survey recommended one MIT to fill out the online questionnaire. The contents included: (a) the basic information of the hospital; (b) a general overview of the MITs in the hospital; (c) daily work; (d) career development and promotion; (e) research status and needs, etc. Differences in the number of MIT staff were compared using the Mann-Whitney U test and the chi-square test was used to compare the differences in the selected numbers of MITs in need between regions or between different levels of hospitals., Results: In this investigation, valid questionnaires were finally obtained from a total of 5403 hospitals in 31 provinces in China. The total number of MITs of the hospitals covered in the sample was 67481. The number of MITs in each hospital was 9 (5, 16). The male-to-female ratio was 1.41:1. MITs who were 20 to 40 years old accounted for 78%. The proportions of MITs who had completed doctorate, master's, undergraduate, junior college, and technical secondary school or lower level education were 0.6%, 3.3%, 60.7%, 30.8%, and 4.55%, respectively. The proportions of chief MITs, deputy chief MITs, supervisor MITs, primary MITs, assistant technician and those below were 1.0%, 4.21%, 22.1%, 51.8%, and 20.9%, respectively. The overall professional satisfaction of MITs was good. "Lack of opportunities for learning and communication" was quoted as the main problem MITs encountered in regard to improving their job-related competency. 59.2% of the respondents had not published any academic papers in the past five years, and only 7.0% of the respondents had published in journals included in the Science Citation Index (SCI) in the past five years., Conclusion: MITs in China are on average relatively young and the number of MITs has greatly increased. At this stage, more attention should be given to the cultivation of talents and continuing education of MITs and the construction of the discipline should be further strengthened, so as to provide strong support for the development of the medical imaging technology industry in China., Competing Interests: 利益冲突　所有作者均声明不存在利益冲突, (© 2024《四川大学学报（医学版）》编辑部 版权所有Copyright ©2024 Editorial Office of Journal of Sichuan University (Medical Sciences).)

Background: Rapid mutation of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus is sweeping the world and delaying the full reopening of society. Acceleration of the vaccination process may be the key element in winning the race against this virus. We examine factors associated with personal considerations of and accessibility to the corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccination in metropolises of China., Methods: This multi-center, cross-sectional research was conducted using online questionnaires from April 1 to June 1, 2021, in community health service centers of Shanghai, Chengdu and Fuzhou. 9,047 vaccinated participants were included and data for 8,990 individuals were eligible for analysis. Chi-square test was conducted to find potential predictors, which were included in the logistic regressions. The odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to assess the influence of region, socio-economic status (SES), and attitudes on vaccination process., Results: In consideration phase, participants in Fuzhou (OR:2.26, 95%CI: 1.90 to 2.68) and Chengdu (OR: 2.48, 95%CI: 2.17 to 2.83) were more likely than those in Shanghai to consider longer than one month. These odds increased for participants with master or above degree (reference: illiteracy and primary school), higher monthly household income (reference: < ¥5000), and greater vaccination hesitancy (reference: low hesitancy). Unemployed and household-based participants (OR: 3.37, 95%CI: 1.69 to 6.75, reference: farmer) and participants without brand preference (OR:1.13, 95%CI:1.02 to 1.26) may take longer time of consideration. In the accessibility phase, participants in Fuzhou (OR: 8.82, 95%CI: 7.28 to 10.68) and Chengdu (OR: 2.28, 95%CI: 1.98 to 2.63) were more likely to wait longer than one week. These odds decreased for participants with master or above degree (reference: illiteracy and primary school), monthly household income from ¥5000 to ¥10,000 (reference: < ¥5000), and teacher or student (reference: farmer). Participants without brand preference (OR: 0.86, 95%CI: 0.77 to 0.95) were likely to wait shorter after appointment, while participants with higher risk awareness of domestic epidemic (medium, OR: 1.24, 95%CI: 1.12 to 1.37, reference: low) may wait longer., Conclusions: The influential factors changed over two phases of vaccination process. Regional disparity affected both consideration and accessibility phases. Expect that, SES, and hesitancy were major factors of the consideration phase, but had limited impact on accessibility phase., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

A large amount of heavy metal-contained wastewater (HMW) was discharged during Chinese industry development, which has caused many environmental problems. This study reviewed discharge, management and treatment of HMW in China through collecting and analyzing data from China's official statistical yearbook, standards, technical specifications, government reports, case reports, and research paper. Results showed that industry wastewater discharged by an amount of about 221.6 × 10 8  t (in 2012), where emission of heavy metals including Pb, Hg, Cd, Cr(VI), T-Cr was around 388.4 t (in 2012). Heavy metal emission with wastewater in east China and central south China was observed to be graver than that in other areas. However, control of heavy metals in Pb and Cd in northwest China was more difficult compared with other areas. In terms of management, China's government has issued many wastewater discharge standards, strict management policies for controlling HMW discharge in recent years, resulting in reduced HMW discharge. In addition, main HMW treatment technology in China was chemical precipitation, and other technologies such as membrane separation, adsorption, ion exchange, electrochemical and biological methods were also occasionally applied. In the future, chemical industries will be concentrated in northwest China, therefore control of HMW discharge should be paid much more attention in those areas. In addition, more effective and environment-friendly heavy metal removal and regeneration technologies should be developed, such as biomaterials adsorbent., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant health threat. Health care worker (HCWs) are at a significant risk of infection which may cause high levels of psychological distress. The aim of this study was to investigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 on HCWs and factors which were associated with these stresses during the first outbreak in Shanghai. Methods: Between February 9 and 21, 2020, a total of 3,114 frontline HCWs from 26 hospitals in Shanghai completed an online survey. The questionnaire included questions on their sociodemographic characteristics, 15 stress-related questions, and General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12). Exploratory factor analysis was applied to the 15 stress-related questions which produced four distinct factors for evaluation. Multiple linear regression models were performed to explore the association of personal characteristics with each score of the four factors. Binary logistic analysis was used to explain the association of personal characteristics and these four factors with the GHQ-12. Results: There were 2,691 valid surveys received. The prevalence of emotional distress (defined as GHQ-12 ≥ 12) was noted in 47.7% (95%CI:45.7-49.6%) HCWs. Females (OR = 1.43, 95%CI:1.09-1.86) were more likely to have a psychological distress than males. However, HCWs who work in secondary hospitals (OR = 0.71, 95% CI:0.58-0.87) or had a no contact history (OR = 0.45, 95%CI: 0.35-0.58) were less likely to suffer psychological distress. HCWs who were nurses, married, and had a known contact history were highly likely to have anxiety. HCWs working at tertiary hospitals felt an elevated anxiety regarding the infection, a lack of knowledge, and less protected compared to those who worked at secondary hospitals. Conclusions: Our study shows that the frontline HCWs had a significant psychosocial distress during the COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai. HCWs felt a lack of knowledge and had feelings of being not protected. It is necessary for hospitals and governments to provide additional trainings and psychological counseling to support the first-line HCWs., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Feng, Xu, Xu, Cao, Zheng, Sharma, Dela Cruz, Zhang, Chu, Yu, Tu, Li, Ren, Zhang, Du, Gu, Liu, Qian, Shen, Tang, Bi, Xiao, Gu, Zhang, Ye, Zhao, Zhai, Hu, Qu and Jie.)

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a new infectious disease, firstly appeared in Wuhan city and has rapidly spread to 114 countries outside China, which is receiving worldwide attention. As two important means of examination, computed tomography (CT) and real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) have always been controversial in the clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia. Here, we report a family cluster case of a father and a son diagnosed as COVID-19 at our hospital, and described the clinical manifestations, laboratory results, CT changes, diagnosis and treatment strategy of these two patients. Focus on the value of these two methods in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, as well as their respective deficiencies. For patient 1 (father), the efficacy of RT-PCR is not satisfactory either in terms of diagnosis or follow-up, which may cause misdiagnosis and delay treatment. For patient 2 (son), the clinical symptoms were not obvious, but CT imaging clearly displayed dynamic changes of the lung lesions. Meanwhile, the two patients respectively underwent five chest CT examinations during their hospitalization and discharge follow-up, showing the potential harm of radiation. Therefore, in clinical work, doctors should make full use of the advantages of CT and RT-PCR, and take other measures to make up for their disadvantages.

China healthcare industry has gradually developed the consumer-centric integrated service model. To satisfy consumers' increasing demands on pluralistic, personalized and transparent healthcare services, pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprises must provide high-quality, precise and flexible medicines. This can be achieved by accelerating implementation of intelligent manufacturing, which is the core competitiveness of pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprises. According to the authors' intelligent manufacturing projects in a traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) factory, study and industrial practice on intelligent manufacturing were presented in this paper. First, the quality digitalization-based intelligent manufacturing methodology of TCM was proposed in this paper. The methodology mainly included three digitalized technologies in process and quality design, manufacturing process control and product batch evaluation. Next, the architectural design of intelligent manufacturing systems in one TCM factory was introduced, and the functional modules and data transmission relationships covering seedling, cultivation, herbal slices, preparation, storage and quality management systems were described. Finally, these technologies were fully used, and an integrated quality digitalization system was successfully established in the production workshop of a TCM product Compound Danshen Dripping Pills. The actual operation and application of process analyzers, supervisory control and data acquisition(SCADA), manufacturing execution system(MES), data analysis system, and enterprise resource planning system(ERP) were introduced. This paper provides reference for technical path planning and systematic architecture of TCM intelligent manufacturing.

In recent years, the problem of soil pollution has become more and more serious. The problem of soil heavy metal pollution and its related human health risks has become a hot spot at home and abroad. Carya cathayensis is a unique high-grade woody nut and oil tree from China, and there are few reports on heavy metal pollution in Carya cathayensis plantation soils. Therefore, in order to study the spatial variability of heavy metals and the risk of pollution in Carya cathayensis soil and to promote the sustainable development of the Carya cathayensis industry, Lin'an, a typical Carya cathayensis plantation area, was selected for this study. A total of 188 soil samples were collected from the study area. We systematically studied the spatial heterogeneity of soil heavy metal content in the study area based on GIS technology, geostatistics, Moran's I, and other spatial analysis methods. The single factor pollution index method, the Nemerow comprehensive pollution index method, and the potential ecological risk assessment method were used to evaluate the heavy metal pollution in the study area. The results indicated that the mean content of soil cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), lead (Pb), nickel (Ni), and chromium (Cr) were 0.37, 40.76, 87.61, 30.10, 28.33, 56.57 mg·kg -1 , respectively. The average values of Cd and Cu were 1.33 and 2.87 times of the background values, respectively, and the average content of other heavy metals did not exceed the background values. The results of the single factor Nemerow pollution index and potential ecological risk assessment methods showed that heavy metals in the study area exceeded the soil background values in some samples, and the second grade standard of soil environmental quality was exceed for Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb, and Ni in 31.38%, 31.38%, 2.65%, 0.53%, and 17.02% of the samples, respectively. This indicated that the soils in the study area had different accumulation characteristics for Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb, Ni, and Cr, and the local soil had reached pollution levels for Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb, and Ni. Among them, Cd was the most serious, reaching the degree of strong ecological damage, followed by Cu. In general, the heavy metal contents indicated a moderate degree of ecological damage. Based on the analysis of the semi-variance function, the Cd, Cu, and Ni in the soil were best fit with exponential models, the Zn and Pb were better fit with the Gaussian model, and Cr was consistent with the spherical model. Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni, and Cr had the strong spatial autocorrelation, with Nugget/Sill ratios of 12.1%, 4.6%, 14.9%, 2.6%, and 11.2%, respectively, while the Nugget/Sill ratio of Zn was 48.8%, indicating a medium spatial autocorrelation. Moran's I and Kriging interpolation results found that the heavy metals Cd, Cu, Zn, Pb, Ni, and Cr all had obvious spatial distribution patterns and local spatial aggregation phenomena. The high values of heavy metals in soils were mainly found in Taiyang, Daoshi, Qingliangfeng, Heqiao, and Tuankou, and the probability of the risk for contamination by Cd and Cu was higher in the study area. The high values of Cd, Cu, Zn, Ni, and Cr were mainly related to mining, while Pb was closely related to the application of potassium.

Objective: To compare the quality of red ginseng in different transplanting systems, and thus provide the basis for ginseng cultivation and processing., Method: Based on the Chinese Pharmacopoeia and literature relating to red ginseng, the ten ginsenosides, total ash, acid-insoluble ash, volatile oil, ether extract and total protein of red ginseng in different transplanting systems were studied or determined., Result and Conclusion: The content of total ash and acid-insoluble ash in red ginseng was less than 5.0%, 0.3%, respectively. The content of three ginsenosides (Rg1, Re, Rb1) was in accordance with the requirements of Chinese Pharmacopoeia version 2010, and the content of ten ginsenosides was significant different.

Coking wastewater was treated by A/O process of biological filter with a special kind of carrier. The wastewater contained much more phenolic compounds with about 2000 mg/L of COD and 260 mg/L of NH4+ -N. The A/O system could achieve average removal efficiencies of 87.0% and 91.6% for COD and NH4+ -N, respectively, when HRT was 60 h. The NH4+ -N in the effluent could meet the first level of National Discharge Standard at optimal operation condition. The phenolic compounds with low molecular weight could be fully biodegraded by A/O system. The organic compounds in the effluent were in the relative molecular weight range of 10,000-30,000 and contained --OH, C==O, C--O and phenyl group. Based on the support and protection of the carrier, a great number of microorganisms adhered and immobilized on the outer and inner surface of carrier, which contributed to a simultaneous removal of COD, NH4+ -N and TN. The A/O system biological filter showed a characteristic of steady performance and resistance ability during the operation period.